In the Prema garage, Alessandro Rossi was already standing at the pit wall with his helmet in his hand.

He had been watching the timing screens from the moment Leo’s Sector 1 split had come through at 27.4. His engineer had said something in Italian beside him. Rossi hadn’t responded. He had watched the Sector 2 split arrive. Had watched the final time lock in.

His expression didn’t break. The face of a champion was built for moments like this — for receiving information that was unpleasant without providing the audience around him with evidence of the impact.

But his engineer noticed. The slight tightening of the Italian’s grip on the helmet. The way his eyes stayed on the board for three full seconds after the time locked in. Rossi looked at things for exactly as long as he needed to. He had stayed on this one longer.

---

In the ART garage, Vega had come back to the pits after the lap. He climbed out of his car, pulled his helmet off, and looked at the board. His jaw set. He said something in Spanish to his engineer that the engineer nodded at without commenting.

Vega had run a 1:27.8. His best of the session. A lap that would have been third in Q1.

In Q2, it was P6.

---

Leo drove the cool-down lap.

He was aware of his body in a specific, detailed way. The right forearm was at the edge of the window — any more sustained load and the grip quality would start to drop. His neck had passed the point where the ache was background information and entered the region where it was active, a low-level constant presence at the base of his skull.

His lap time was 1:26.9.

He let the number exist in his mind without adding anything to it.

Then he looked at the timing board as he passed beneath it on the back straight.

1. L. Kaito (Arcadia) — 1:26.9 🟣

2. A. Rossi (Prema) — 1:27.2

3. T. Moreau (Prema) — 1:27.6

4. O. Dubois (DAMS) — 1:27.9

5. R. Vega (ART) — 1:27.8

---

10. N. Eriksson (MP) — 1:28.7

11. M. Berg (Arcadia) — 1:28.9

12. E. Leclerc (Invicta) — 1:29.0

---

The cut line.

P10 was Eriksson. P11 was Berg. The gap between them was two-tenths of a second and the session clock read four minutes and the field was not finished.

Leo read his teammate’s name.

P11. Outside the top ten with four minutes remaining.

He noted it. Filed it. Moved on.

’He overdrove Sector 1 again. The rear went light at Turn 3 exit. The data will show it. He’s been doing the same thing in every session and he hasn’t changed it because changing it would mean admitting the framework is wrong.’

He turned through Turn 14.

He thought about Berg standing in the garage after Q1. The jaw set tight. The eyes moving across the board and then moving to Leo’s name and then moving back. The veteran who had spent three seasons at this level telling a technician turned rookie not to have big words.

The cold satisfaction arrived.

Not hot. Not angry. Cold and settled and quiet — the exact same temperature it had been when the Ghost Drivers in the simulation had run their perfect lap one last time before he had stripped it apart sector by sector and rebuilt his own version of it three-tenths faster.

He let it exist without expression.

Then he looked ahead at the circuit.

Rossi was on a push lap somewhere in Sector 1.

The Italian would improve. He would find something in the track evolution or the tyre window or the pure, experienced commitment of a driver who had been here before and knew exactly how much the car had left. He would go faster. He would probably take P1 back.

And the gap between them would still be smaller than anyone had predicted.

---

"Leo." Anya’s voice. Steady now. Controlled in a way that had been rebuilt since the lap — reassembled from the stripped version that had said *Please* during the Moreau pass. "Rossi is on his second run. His Sector 1 came through at 27.5."

"Still behind mine," Leo said.

"Yes. His Sector 2 is coming."

Leo came through Turn 15 on the cool-down and waited.

"Sector 2," Elias said. "27.5 on Rossi’s Sector 2." A pause. "His combined is 1:08.1 through two sectors. He’ll need a very strong Sector 3."

A long pause on the radio.

Then: "Rossi’s final time — 1:27.0."

Leo drove through Turn 16.

"He improves to P2," Elias said. "You remain P1. By one-tenth."

One-tenth.

Leo nodded inside the helmet.

The timing board updated as he came onto the main straight.

1. L. Kaito (Arcadia) — 1:26.9 🟣

2. A. Rossi (Prema) — 1:27.0

3. T. Moreau (Prema) — 1:27.4

4. R. Vega (ART) — 1:27.6

5. O. Dubois (DAMS) — 1:27.8

6. L. Bennett (ART) — 1:27.9

7. J. Khalil (Hitech) — 1:28.1

8. K. Nakamura (Hitech) — 1:28.3

9. F. Santos (DAMS) — 1:28.5

10. M. Rossi (Invicta) — 1:28.6

---

11. M. Berg (Arcadia) — 1:28.9 ❌

12. N. Eriksson (MP) — 1:29.0 ❌

The clock hit zero.

Q2 was over.

Marcus Berg’s name sat at P11. One position below the cut. One-tenth of a second from making Q3. His time hadn’t moved in the final four minutes. No second push. No improvement. The session had ended while his name sat exactly where it was.

Leo saw the board lock. Saw his own name at the top and Berg’s at P11 with the small elimination marker beside it.

He drove through Turn 1 on the final cool-down lap.

The crowd noise from the grandstands was not the noise of a session ending. It was the noise of people processing a timing board that showed a car they had never heard of sitting one-tenth faster than a driver who had been champion favourite since January.